For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories Read online

  By the time the latecomers had been delivered, the initial terror of the other twenty-three had subsided. The situation was tense and grave, but also unique. An eminent selection of Europe’s surviving Yiddish literary community was being held within the confines of an oversized closet. Had they known they were going to die, it might have been different. Since they didn’t, I. J. Manger wasn’t about to let Mani Zaretsky see him cry for rachmones. He didn’t have time to anyway. Pyotr Kolyazin, the famed atheist, had already dragged him into a heated discussion about the ramifications of using God’s will to drastically alter the outcome of previously “logical” plots. Manger took this to be an attack on his work and asked Kolyazin if he labeled everything he didn’t understand “illogical.” There was also the present situation to discuss, as well as old rivalries, new poems, disputed reviews, journals that just aren’t the same, up-and-coming editors, and, of course, the gossip, for hadn’t they heard that Lev had used his latest manuscript for kindling?

  When the noise got too great, a guard opened the peephole in the door to find that a symposium had broken loose. As a result, by the time numbers twenty-four through twenty-seven arrived, the others had already been separated into smaller cells.

  Each cell was meant to house four prisoners and contained three rotting mats to sleep on. In a corner was a bucket. There were crude holes in the wood-plank walls, and it was hard to tell if the captors had punched them as a form of ventilation or if the previous prisoners had painstakingly scratched them through to confirm the existence of a world outside.

  The four latecomers had lain down immediately, Pinchas on the floor. He was dazed and shivering, stifling his moans so the others might rest. His companions did not even think of sleep: Vasily Korinsky because of worry about what might be the outcome for his wife; Y. Zunser because he was trying to adapt to the change (the only alteration he had planned for in his daily routine was death, and that in his sleep); Bretzky because he hadn’t really awakened.

  Excepting Pinchas, none had an inkling of how long they’d traveled, whether from morning until night or into the next day. Pinchas tried to use his journey as an anchor, but in the dark he soon lost his notion of time gone by. He listened for the others’ breathing, making sure they were alive.

  The lightbulb hanging from a frayed wire in the ceiling went on. This was a relief; not only an end to the darkness but a separation, a seam in the seeming endlessness.

  They stared unblinking into the dim glow of the bulb and worried about its abandoning them. All except Bretzky, whose huge form already ached for a vodka and who dared not crack an eye.

  Zunser was the first to speak. “With morning there is hope.”

  “For what?” asked Korinsky out of the side of his mouth. His eye was pressed up against a hole in the back wall.

  “A way out,” Zunser said. He watched the bulb, wondering how much electricity there was in the wire, how he would reach it, and how many of them it would serve.

  Korinsky misunderstood the statement to be an optimistic one. “Feh on your way out and feh on your morning. It’s pitch dark outside. Either it’s night or we’re in a place with no sun. I’m freezing to death.”

  The others were a bit shocked when Bretzky spoke: “Past the fact that you are not one of the whores I paid for and this is not the bed we fell into, I’m uncertain. Whatever the situation, I shall endure it, but without your whining about being cold in front of an old man in shirtsleeves and this skinny one with no shoes.” His powers of observation were already returning and Yom Kippur still months away.

  “I’m fine,” said Pinchas. “I’d much rather have a book than shoes.”

  They all knitted their brows and studied the man; even Bretzky propped himself up on an elbow.

  Zunser laughed, and then the other three started in. Yes, it would be much better to have a book. Whose book? Surely not the pamphlet by that fool Horiansky—this being a well-publicized and recent failure. They laughed some more. Korinsky stopped, worrying that one of the other men in the room might be Horiansky. Horiansky, thankfully, was on the other end of the hall and was spared that final degradation before his death.

  No one said another word until the lightbulb went off again, and then they remained silent because it was supposed to be night. However, it was not. Korinsky could see light seeping through the holes and chinks in the boards. He would tell them so when the bulb came back on, if it did.

  Pinchas could have laughed indefinitely, or at least until the time of his execution. His mind was not trained, never taught any restraint or punished for its reckless abandon. He had written because it was all that interested him, aside from his walks, and the pictures at which he had peeked. Not since childhood had he skipped a day of writing.

  Composing without pen and paper, he decided on something short, something he could hone, add a little bit to every day until his release.

  Zunser felt the coldness of the floor seeping into his bones, turning them brittle. It was time anyway. He had lived a long life, enjoyed recognition for something he loved doing. All the others who had reached his level of fame had gone to the ovens or were in America. How much more meaningless was success with the competition gone? Why write at all when your readers have been turned to ash? Never outlive your language. Zunser rolled onto his side.

  Bretzky sweated the alcohol out of his blood. He tried to convince himself that it was a vision of drink, a clearer vision because he was getting older, but a hallucination nonetheless. How many times had he turned, after hearing his name called, to find no one? He fumbled for a breast, a soft pink cheek, a swatch of satin, and fell asleep.

  Before closing his eyes only to find more darkness, Pinchas recited the first paragraph a final time:

  The morning that Mendel Muskatev awoke to find his desk was gone, his room was gone, and the sun was gone, he assumed he had died. This worried him, so he said the prayer for the dead, keeping himself in mind. Then he wondered if one was allowed to do such a thing, and worried instead that the first thing he had done upon being dead was sin.

  When the light came on, Korinsky stirred noticeably, as if to break the ice, as if they were bound by the dictates of civilized society. “You know it isn’t morning, it’s about nine o’clock or ten, midnight at the latest.”

  Pinchas was reciting his paragraph quietly, playing with the words, making changes, wishing he had a piece of slate.

  Korinsky waited for an answer, staring at the other three. It was hard to believe they were writers. He figured he too must be disheveled, but at least there was some style left in him. These others, a drunk, an incontinent old curmudgeon, and an idiot, could not be of his caliber. Even the deficient Horiansky would be appreciated now. “I said, it’s not morning. They’re trying to fool us, mess up our internal clocks.”

  “Then go back to sleep and leave us to be fooled.” Bretzky had already warned this sot yesterday. He didn’t need murder added to his list of trumped-up charges.

  “You shouldn’t be so snide with me. I’m only trying to see if we can maintain a little dignity while they’re holding us here.”

  Zunser had set himself up against a wall. He had folded his mat and used it like a chair, cushioning himself from the splinters. “You say ‘holding’ as if this is temporary and in the next stage we will find ourselves someplace more to our liking.”

  Korinsky looked at Zunser, surveying him boldly. He did not like being goaded, especially by some old coot who had no idea to whom he was talking.

  “Comrade,” he addressed Zunser in a most acerbic tone, “I am quite sure my incarceration is due to bureaucratic confusion of some sort. I’ve no idea what you wrote that landed you here, but I have an impeccable record. I was a principal member of the Anti-Fascist Committee, and my ode, Stalin of Silver, Stalin of Gold, happens to be a national favorite.”

  “ ‘We spilled our blood in revolution, only to choke on Stalin’s pollution.’ ” Bretzky quoted a bastardization of Korinsky’s ballad.


  “How dare you mock me!”

  “I’ve not had the pleasure of hearing the original,” Zunser said, “but I must say the mockery is quite entertaining.”

  “ ‘Our hearts cheered as one for revolution, now we bask in the glory of great Stalin’s solution.’ ” All three heads turned to Pinchas, Korinsky’s the quickest.

  “Perfect.” Korinsky sneered at the other two men. “I must say it is nice to be in the presence of at least one fan.”

  Among the many social interactions Pinchas had never before been involved in, this was one. He did not know when adulation was being requested.

  “Oh, I’m no fan, sir. You’re a master of the Yiddish language, but the core of all your work is flawed by a heavy-handed party message that has nothing to do with the people about whom you write.” This with an eloquence which to Korinsky sounded like the fool was condescending.

  “The characters are only vehicles, fictions!” He was shouting at Pinchas. Then he caught himself shouting at an idiot, while the other two men convulsed with laughter.

  “They are very real,” said Pinchas before returning to his rocking and mumbling.

  “What are you two fops making fun of? At least I have a body of work that is read.”

  Bretzky was angry again. “Speak to me as you like. If it begins to bother me too much, I’ll pinch your head off from your neck.” He made a pinching motion with his massive fingers. “But I must warn you against speaking to your elders with disrespect. Furthermore, I have a most cloudy feeling that the face on the old man also belongs to the legendary Zunser, whose accomplishments far exceed those of any of the writers, Yiddish or otherwise, alive in Russia today.”

  “Zunser?” said Korinsky.

  “Y. Zunser!” screamed Pinchas. He could not imagine being confined with such a singular mind. Pinchas had never even considered that Zunser was an actual person. My God, he had seen the great seer pee into a bucket. “Zunser,” he said to the man. He stood and banged his fist against the door, screaming “Zunser” over and over again, like it was a password his keepers would understand and know the game was finished.

  A guard came down the hall and beat Pinchas to the floor. He left them a bowl of water and a few crusts of black bread. The three ate quickly. Bretzky held up the casualty while Zunser poured some water into his mouth, made him swallow.

  “The man is crazy, he is going to get us all killed.” Korinsky sat with his eye against a knothole, peering into the darkness of their day.

  “Maybe us, but who would dare to kill the poet laureate of the Communist empire?” Bretzky’s tone was biting, though his outward appearance did not reflect it. He cradled Pinchas’s limp form while Zunser mopped the boy’s brow with his sleeve.

  “This is no time for joking. I was going to arrange for a meeting with the warden, but that lunatic’s screaming fouled it up. Swooning like a young girl. Has he never before met a man he admired?” Korinsky hooked a finger through one of the larger holes, as if he were trying to feel the texture of the darkness outside. “Who knows when that guard will return?”

  “I would not rush to get out,” said Zunser. “I can assure you there is only one way to exit.”

  “Your talk gets us nowhere.” Korinsky stood and leaned a shoulder against a cold board.

  “And what has gotten you somewhere?” said Zunser. “Your love ballads to the regime? There are no hoofbeats to be heard in the distance. Stalin doesn’t spur his horse, racing to your rescue.”

  “He doesn’t know. He wouldn’t let them do this to me.”

  “Maybe not to you, but to the Jew that has your name and lives in your house and lies next to your wife, yes.” Zunser massaged a stiffening knee.

  “It’s not my life. It’s my culture, my language. No more.”

  “Only your language?” Zunser waved him away. “Who are we without Yiddish?”

  “The four sons of the Passover seder, at best.” Korinsky sounded bitter.

  “This is more than tradition, Korinsky. It’s blood.” Bretzky spat into the pail. “I used to drink with Kapler, shot for shot.”

  “And?” Korinsky kept his eye to a hole but listened closely.

  “And have you seen a movie directed by Kapler lately? He made a friendship with the exalted comrade’s daughter. Now he is in a labor camp—if he’s alive. Stalin did not take too well to Jewish hands on his daughter’s pure white skin.”

  “You two wizards can turn a Stalin to a Hitler.”

  Bretzky reached over and gave Korinsky a pat on the leg. “We don’t need the Nazis, my friend.”

  “Feh, you’re a paranoid, like all drunks.”

  Zunser shook his head. He was tiring of the Communist and worried about the boy. “He’s got a fever. And he’s lucky if there isn’t a crack in that head.” The old man took off his shoes and put his socks on Pinchas.

  “Let me,” said Bretzky.

  “No,” Zunser said. “You give him the shoes, mine won’t fit him.” Pinchas’s feet slipped easily into Bretzky’s scuffed and cracking shoes.

  “Here, take it.” Korinsky gave them his mat. “Believe me, it’s not for the mitzvah. I just couldn’t stand to spend another second trapped with your righteous stares.”

  “The eyes you feel are not ours,” said Zunser.

  Korinsky glowered at his wall.

  Pinchas Pelovits was not unconscious. He had only lost his way. He heard the conversations, but paid them little heed. The weight of his body lay on him like a corpse. He worked on his story, saying it aloud to himself, hoping the others would hear and follow it and bring him back.

  Mendel figured he’d best consult the local rabbi, who might be able to direct him in such matters. It was Mendel’s first time visiting the rabbi in his study—not having previously concerned himself with the nuances of worship. Mendel was much surprised to find that the rabbi’s study was of the exact dimensions of his missing room. In fact, it appeared that the tractate the man was poring over rested on the missing desk.

  The bulb glowed. And with light came relief. What if they had been left in the darkness? They hated the bulb for its control, such a flimsy thing.

  They had left a little water for the morning. Again, Bretzky held Pinchas while Zunser tipped the bowl against the boy’s lips. Korinsky watched, wanting to tell them to be careful not to spill, to make sure they saved some for him.

  Pinchas sputtered, then said, “Fine, that’s fine.” He spoke loudly for someone in such apparent ill health. Zunser passed the bowl to Korinsky before taking his own sip.

  “Very good to have you with us,” said Zunser, trying to catch the boy’s eyes with his own. “I wanted to ask you, why is my presence so unsettling? We are all writers here, if I understand the situation correctly.”

  Zunser used Bretzky to belabor the point. “Come on, tell the boy who you are.”

  “Moishe Bretzky. They call me The Glutton in the gossip columns.”

  Zunser smiled at the boy. “You see. A big name. A legend for his poetry, as much for his antics. Now, tell us. Who are you?”

  “Pinchas Pelovits.”

  None had heard the name. Zunser’s curiosity was piqued. Bretzky didn’t care either way. Korinsky was only further pained at having to put up with a madman who wasn’t even famous.

  “I am the one who doesn’t belong here,” Pinchas said. “Though if I could, I’d take the place of any of you.”

  “But you are not here in place of us, you are here as one of us. Do you write?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s all I do. That’s all I’ve ever done, except for reading and my walks.”

  “If it makes any difference, we welcome you as an equal.” Zunser surveyed the cubicle. “I’d much rather be saying this to you in my home.”

  “Are you sure I’m here for being a writer?” Pinchas looked at the three men.

  “Not just for being a writer, my friend.” Bretzky clapped him lightly on the back. “You are here as a subversive writer. An enemy of the state! Quit
e a feat for an unknown.”

  The door opened and all four were dragged from the cell and taken by a guard to private interrogation chambers—Bretzky escorted by three guards of his own. There they were beaten, degraded, made to confess to numerous crimes, and to sign confessions that they had knowingly distributed Zionist propaganda aimed at toppling the Soviet government.

  Zunser and Pinchas had been in adjoining chambers and heard each other’s screams. Bretzky and Korinsky also shared a common wall, though there was silence after each blow. Korinsky’s sense of repute was so strong that he stifled his screaming. Bretzky did not call out. Instead he cried and cried. His abusers mocked him for it, jeering at the overgrown baby. His tears did not fall from the pain, however. They came out of the sober realization of man’s cruelty and the picture of the suffering being dealt to his peers, especially Zunser.

  Afterward, they were given a fair amount of water, a hunk of bread, and some cold potato-and-radish soup. They were returned to the same cell in the darkness. Zunser and Pinchas needed to be carried.

  Pinchas had focused on his story, his screams sounding as if they were coming from afar. With every stripe he received, he added a phrase, the impact reaching his mind like the dull rap of a windowpane settling in its sash:

  “Rabbi, have you noticed we are without a sun today?” Mendel asked by way of an introduction.

  “My shutters are closed against the noise.”

  “Did no one else mention it at morning prayers?”

  “No one else arrived,” said the rabbi, continuing to study.

  “Well, don’t you think that strange?”

  “I had. I had until you told me about this sun. Now I understand—no sensible man would get up to greet a dawn that never came.”

  They were all awake when the bulb went on. Zunser was making peace with himself, preparing for certain death. The fingers of his left hand were twisted and split. Only his thumb had a nail.